The Philosophy of Modern Song: Truckin’ by Grateful Dead and a format no one else has used

Posted on January 25, 2026 by Tony Attwood

By Tony Attwood

Today we have Truckin’.   The first paragraph below is my general introduction, but if you’ve been here before please skip the first paragraph and go straight onto what is, in my view, one of the most brilliant pieces of song writing in the rock genre of all times.

Btt first, if you want an overall review of Bob’s book, “The Philosophy of Modern Song” there is one here.   And of course, there is the option of reading Bob’s book, or one of the multitude of fulsome reviews of the book, yourself.  But I am trying to do something different here, which is to provide a copy of each song, so if you are not familiar with the piece, you can listen to it.  And then also provide a few thoughts of my own as to why Bob picked this particular song, although of course, you don’t have to read them.  You can just listen to the music.

A list of the songs in the book with links to our reviews is at the end.

 

As may have become clear if you have read my reviews so far, I am not always sure why Bob has chosen certain songs for inclusion in the Philosophy, but with Truckin’ there really can be no misunderstanding at all.  Musically and lyrically, it is both unique and a masterpiece (and the two accolades don’t always work together).

First, the structure.  In essence, the song is a call and response song, which is an approach I think Bob has never used in his songwriting, and is indeed quite rare in pop and rock music.  But I should clarify here because it can be said that “My Generation” by The Who is a “call and response” song, in which the opening line is “People try to put us downm” and the response is “Talking ’bout my generation.”

Yes, that is a simple type of “call and response,” and indeed one could say it is call and response reduced to its absolute simplest possible level.

In essence, in this song, the “call” is a section of the song is four lines, which is sung as a solo, and the “response” is another four lines (normally sung, as is the case in this performance, by the chorus), the response having different words and different music.   Since each call and response is different, there is no sense of repetition, but there is a sense of unity about the whole song.

Now on the Genius website, the Call is (for reasons that I really don’t understand) called the “Chorus” (which it certainly isn’t), and the Response is called the “Verse” (ditto), although I have to admit, maybe that is the correct terminology in America.  (Although if it is, that is stunningly confusing.  Anyway,  I only know the terminology of the UK, and so  I think this is not only wrong but also confusing in that the essence of a chorus is that it is the same each time, which clearly is not the case here.  But then we are only talking terminology.

However, we should also note that in “Truckin” the band goes further because the “call” is just based on one chord, while the “response” sounds like more conventional rock music as it takes in the three major chords of the key the song is in.

And then just to make things even more complicated, Truckin’ goes even further since it also has a middle 8 (which the Genius website calls the “bridge”) as well; it is a section with different music which also modulates to a new key, and indeed comes twice in the song.

This is one of those songs that has lots and lots of cover versions (as ever, Second Hand Songs gives a good starting point as any), and I certainly haven’t listened to them all, but of all those I have taken in, I can’t find any that matches the absolute five-star quality of the Grateful Dead’s version.

For me, the Dead have not only used what is a virtually unknown song format in pop and rock music, but they have also done it in a way that makes absolute musical and lyrical sense.   Indeed, I am not at all sure anything more could be done with the song than the Dead have put into their recording, which I guess is why so many of the cover versions sound exactly the same.

So three cheers and then three more for Bob for including this song in his Philosophy.  Writing a song which not only uses a virtually unknown structure (at least within rock music) and making it so listenable really is a rare talent.  I can only hope that if you have not had a chance to listen to the song before, you’ll enjoy it now, and thank Bob for including it.

But if I may, let me leave you with one more point.   Bob clearly recognised the brilliance of this song and its structure, and yet he has never, as far as I know, used this structure of call and response in his songwriting.   Or maybe he has, and I haven’t recognised it.  If that is the case, please do tell me.

Previously in this series

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